


Out of the Frying Pan...

by junko



Series: Scatter and Howl [27]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Haircuts, M/M, Original Character(s), Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 18:05:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4446392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renji breaks the news to the Division about Byakuya's arrest.  Meanwhile, Byakuya begins the intake procedures at the Maggot's Nest.  He's prepared for nearly everything. NEARLY everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Frying Pan...

Byakuya thought he'd prepared himself for the trip inside the Maggot's Nest, but he hadn't.

He'd expected the long march, following Soi Fon's trim, narrow form across the bridge. The dreary, emptiness of the place--the sheer cliff walls, the gray forbidding skies--was also no surprise. Nor was that indignity of the front guard searching his person for obvious weaponry. 

What surprised him was that, though he’d carefully rebuilt his mental walls, they were no longer as impervious as they once were. It was as though stone had turned to steel mesh. Tiny holes in his armor let in a breeze that coldly caressed his face like stolen kisses. The walls used to be strong enough to leave him numb and unfeeling. Now they only guaranteed he wouldn’t break and show the emotions roiling beneath Senbonzakura’s oni mask.

And what he felt was alone. It was a mistake to have banished Renji. Renji would have walked beside him as long as they allowed it, and then, as they held him back, he would have fought to follow even further.

Byakuya wanted to be able to turn his head now and see someone desperate to never leave him, someone fighting with every scrap of strength they had to remain by his side. 

A flock of noisy crows dipped and circled above.

“That reminds me,” Soi Fon said, glancing over her shoulder. They were nearly to the second set of guards and the main entry. “I assume that your family will foot the bill for your stay?”

“Absolutely not,” Byakuya said, a howling, biting wind nearly swallowing his words.

Soi Fon stopped and turned to regard him. The wind clanked the rings at the ends of her long braids together as they whipped out behind her. “Your private funds, then? I assumed I was showing you to the suite where we kept the Abarai boy. Am I dumping you in the general population?”

Certainly, he'd been able to afford Seichi's 'upgrade' on the money that his family allotted him as a personal stipend. However, in his current situation, he could not to be beholden to any cash flow that came from Kuchiki. They would consider paying for a posh prison cell the worst kind of insult, as well they should. 

Besides, it would be the very first thing Aunt Masama would cut, if she could.

The only other personal source of income he had was his captain's salary—but that was a no go. Certainly, there would have been a kind of irony in using his military salary to pay for time served for fraternization, but he had, long ago, when he'd first taken the position, diverted his paychecks into the Division's operational budget.

“It seems you must,” Byakuya concluded.

Soi Fon pursed her lips thoughtfully, then she shrugged. “I hope you've got good hakuda.”

Even though she had already turned away and resumed their march to the front, Byakuya assured her, “I am a master.”

A crow called out a brash, mocking: “Ha. Ha. Ha.”

#

The first thing Renji did was call a Division meeting of the seated officers. He got Richiki on organizing some food and tea for the twenty-one of them and, once the last of the stragglers made it into the mess hall, he shut the door. “There's no easy way to tell all of you this, so I'm just going to lay it out,” he said, making his way back over to where everyone was seated.

A third of the officers had been on their sleep shift and so were hunched blearily over bowls of tea. Another third were clearly cranky about being kept on for the extra few minutes. He'd already heard a lot of whispers wondering what the hell was going on and when the captain was going to be showing up. Some were speculating that there must be another upcoming Kuchiki shingding. Most were just generally grumbling about the hour.

Renji cleared his throat. “So, uh, here’s the deal: Captain Kuchiki has been arrested for fraternization and will be serving three-weeks in the Maggot's Nest.”

Renji never even got to say the rest of what he'd planned. The room erupted. Everyone was shouting at once. Their Fifteenth Seat, Kaiyo, launched herself over the table and tackled Kinjo. In a second, she had him straddled and was pounding him in the face. Renji hardly had a chance to react in his surprise, “Whoa, what the fuck!?”

As someone pulled Kaiyo off, she shouted, “You dirty fink, Kinjo! You turned them in!”

“Did not!” Kinjo shouted. Rubbing his jaw, he took the hand Renji offered to help him up. He looked up at Renji, his eyes sincere, “I swear, man. I know we've had our differences, but I took the pact seriously.”

“Pact? What pact?” Renji asked.

The Fifteenth Seat shook off the people holding her back. “We all promised to keep the captain's secret,” she glanced at each one of her colleagues in turn with a look that could bore hot, smoldering holes into cold steel, “All. of. us.”

Huh. Renji felt a weird sort of rush of pride. Most days, he couldn't get this lot to agree to a shift schedule, and they'd all rallied around Byakuya and him like this? “Look, don’t go tearing each other up. Nobody ratted us out,” Renji told them. “Our… uh, relationship just came out, by accident...” everyone was looking at him, and he felt himself flushing with embarrassment, “...uh, in front of the captain of the Ninth.”

There was a whole lot of swearing. Someone, Renji wasn’t even sure who, snarled, “Damn it, Renji! Can’t you keep your fool mouth shut?” Before he could correct that assumption, the questions he’d been expecting came rolling in: “What happens now?” “Dear gods, is there going to be a court martial?” “How long is the captain gone for?” “What the actual fuck, I can’t believe this happened to Kuchiki-taicho, what are we going to do?”

Renji raised his hands to stop the barrage. “Just, everybody take your seats for a second,” he had to say because concern and nerves had brought several officers to their feet. The Tenth Seat had started pacing. The Fifth stood around, wringing her hands. Once everyone was settled again, Renji said, “It’s three weeks. Once he’s done his time, it’s done. No court martial, no other reprisals or reprimands… or transfers. So, that’s all we’ve got to get through: three weeks. Then everything will be back to normal. You guys have been without the captain and I for a lot longer than that, and I’m going to be here this time… as Acting Captain, apparently.” Noise started up again, so Renji had to raise his voice to say, “That was the captain’s idea, not mine. But somebody’s got to sign the paperwork, right?”

There was a smattering of laughter at that. 

Renji continued. “I decided not to call a full assembly because… well, because we still have a lot of unseated officers out providing security to Kuchiki families traveling back to their estates, and, well, honestly, I figured you guys could help me decide how best to disseminate this information. I want to be open and honest about it, but I kind of feel like it’s the Captain’s pride we’re talking about. The Division’s, too.”

There were many serious and grim nods at that. Someone, Renji thought it might be their smartass Sixteenth Seat, Aiji, said, loud enough to be heard by the whole room: “At least we won’t be the first Division with a Captain who’s spent time in the Maggot’s Nest.”

Renji pinioned Aiji under a hard glare. He lifted a finger to count to one. “That’s your one and only free shot. Next guy who compares Captain Kuchiki to Mayuri Kurotsuchi gets a punch, got it?”

Kaiyo lifted her hand, “Seconded.”

Kinjo slapped his hand on the mess hall table, “The motion passes. Anybody talks trash about our Captain gets a beating.”

Okay, well, Renji thought with a crooked smile, he could strike ‘team building’ and ‘morale concerns’ off his to-be-worried-about list. He glanced over at where Nanako sat at the far end of the table. She’d been fairly quiet through this whole thing. Renji’d be more concerned about her, but she had a stack of papers with her. It seemed she was already deep on damage control. 

“Right, so,” Renji came over to the center of the table and sat himself down in the middle of it. People moved out of the way and turned around so they all faced each other, “I’m going to tell you the whole sordid story of last night’s debacle, and you all can decide what you tell your soldiers and what you don’t. Thing is, rumor mill is already going to be in full swing, so I want you to hear how it really went down, direct from me. So, last night, the captain and I went on a date….”

Renji left off the bit about where he proposed, but otherwise he was fairly honest. Well, he fudged around about what the argument had been about, too, but that was mostly to do with the fact that in the sober light of morning he wasn’t exactly sure, himself. The seated officers didn’t need to know their whole sordid history, Byakuya’s crazy-ass jealousy, and any of the leash bullshit, so he paraphrased it as, ‘we said both said stupid things, like you do’ and cut to the part where Byakuya had lost his temper and the Ninth got involved. But, otherwise, he held nothing back. Thing was, at least a couple of them had been on patrol duty last night. It wasn’t like they didn’t know about his arrest for insubordination and the apologies they’d be making to the shopkeeper whose window got busted up.

“...the Captain wanted me well out of it this morning, but Rukia was there when the Soutaicho laid down the law. She told me about the sentence. The only other thing I know is that the Captain is deeply worried about his family getting involved in this--to the point that he had me warn Central 46 about the possibility of a clan war.”

“Is that why he appointed you Interim-Captain?” Nanako asked. “Was he worried the Kuchiki would try to put in one of their own?” 

Renji hadn’t considered that, but he nodded, “Maybe. You wouldn’t think they’d have the authority, but their relationship to the Division is weird.”

There was a lot of nodding about that from the officers that had spent time in other Divisions. 

“A clan war,” Kinjo mused, twirling his bowl of tea in his hands. “What even is that? What do we do against a bunch of nobles in their family’s heirloom samurai armor on horseback? We can’t fight them… can we?”

“No, we can’t,” Renji said. “We fire shots across the bow at the most. Thing is, Central is only willing to let us defend Division property. It’s a good idea to stay out of the family squabble, in theory, except, in reality, that’s literally our back door. We’ve also got people in the outlands, acting as security, who could get taken hostage. All our guys are unseated; they don’t have shikai. So that’s a real concern. I would not put it past the Kuchiki to press any advantage they have. They’re a ruthless lot, and they’ve been gunning for Byakuya for a long time.”

“Maybe we should form a committee,” Nanako said. “Technically, I’m the family’s liaison, but I could use some advice from any of you who have ties to noble families. I feel like we’d better have a plan of action ready to roll.”

“But it’s only three damn weeks,” Kinjo said. “What the fuck can they do in three weeks? Their armies don’t have shunpo. We do.”

Renji laughed. “You suggesting we just flash some people to the major holdings and just say, ‘hey, whatever you were thinking: don’t’?”

“Kinda,” Kinjo smiled an evil smile.

Renji thought about it for a second, then he shook his head. “As awesome as that might be, I don’t think it’d be such a good idea if my first act as Captain of the Sixth was to declare war on the Kuchiki clan. Just sayin’.”

#

The warden waited for Byakuya and Soi Fon at the end of the bridge. 

She was just as unsettling as the first time Byakuya met her. A tall woman with stark white hair cut in a utilitarian style, her shihakushō was unremarkable, as well. But the hands that she tried to keep clasped in front of her stomach reached out randomly, as if clutching after something invisible that had started to fall. She bowed to her captain, but her sharp eyes never left Byakuya. “Good to see you again, Kuchiki-taicho,” she smiled. She couldn’t keep her hands from fluttering up and moving as though to draw a circle around his body, “And with Senbonzakura wrapped around you like a sparkling cloak. So pretty.”

She stepped forward then, her hand reaching out, but stopping just at Byakuya’s ‘safe zone’ of eighty-five centimeters. “Your master has been very naughty, Senbonzakura,” the warden said, looking up at the sky for a moment, and then, sharply, back to him, “And foolish if he thinks he can stay in release inside those walls. I hope he has a contingency plan for you. It would be very unfortunate for you to reseal here, in his hand.”

“Senbonzakura will not,” Byakuya said, having a hard time keeping the irritation from his voice, despite his walls. Senbonzakura sang loudly to him of their dislike for this woman.

“Then all is well,” she smiled. Byakuya half-expected snaggly, broken teeth, but they were straight and white. “Welcome to the Maggot’s Nest.”

Soi Fon watched this exchange impassively, and then said to her warden, “He’s not paying for the special room.”

“No? How pleasant,” the warden said. 

Soi Fon shook her head at the warden. “You’re as weird as your annoying predecessor, Hanatori.” To Byakuya she said, “I’ll be back for you in three weeks. Don’t break the place, but any corpses you leave behind will be a gift to me.” With that, she turned and strode purposely back across the bridge.

Byakuya must have raised an eyebrow in surprise, because the warden nodded. “I’m afraid it’s grim inside. Despite what my captain said, my predecessor and I are nothing alike. He was far more scrupulous about keeping the peace. Follow me, I’ll give you the tour.”

Byakuya failed to see how he had much choice. On top of that, his heart sank at the mere thought of someone less scrupulous than Kisuke Urahara. 

#

The meeting with the seated officers didn’t break up until almost lunch time. A couple of the officers on their sleep shift had their heads down on the table, snoring soundly. But, as he gently woke one of the snoozing officers with a shake of her shoulder, Renji thought everything had gone pretty well, considering. 

Nanako had her committee and they were huddled in the corner discussing who knew whom in the Kuchiki clan and what strings they could pull and which spies they had. 

There had been surprisingly few recriminations. Some people clearly figured Renji was to blame for the secret getting out, but that was because they refused to believe it was possible for Byakuya to ever have had too much to drink. He couldn’t entirely blame them, drunk Byakuya always freaked Renji out, too, and he would never have believed it if he hadn’t experienced it himself. But, otherwise, for the most part, the Division was all about circling the wagons and closing ranks. 

Renji had to admit that made him a little proud.

He’d known, going in to the Sixth, that this was a loyal bunch, particularly to their captain and to the whole ‘noble reason’ ideal, but it was another thing to see it extended to himself. If he’d ever had any doubt, it was clear he’d become one of them now. 

At least during a crisis. 

There were a few who seemed to be setting aside unspoken grievances or prejudices, but they seemed to be willing to put that shit aside so long as they felt Renji was doing his job. He’d already decided to pull a double today. There was no point in taking time off when he had no one to go home to. 

That reminded him. Summoning a butterfly, Renji sent a message to Soi Fon requesting the procedures for a visit to Byakuya. He only stumbled over “Acting Captain Abarai” twice.

Fuck.

Though, frankly, he be just as happy if he never got used to saying that.

#

Just as predicted, Byakuya felt his connection to Senbonzakura muffle the instant he stepped over the threshold into the prison proper. 

The warden gave him a knowing smile at the precise moment that the song faded. “Still,” she said, licking her lips, as though remembering something tasty, “You’re lucky. Many here had their companions forcefully taken.”

_And you enjoyed that, clearly,_ Byakuya thought, but didn’t say. 

Bars slid aside and revealed a burly gate guard. He wasn’t as tall as Renji, but he was at least three-times as broad. The man was all shoulders and muscle, yet somehow his waist was trim and his hips narrow. His straw yellow hair was trimmed closely to his skull. His eyes roamed over Byakuya hungrily, “Fresh meat,” he noted. Rubbing his hands together he said, “You ready to be strip searched, pretty boy?”

“Of course,” Byakuya said dryly, reaching to undo his obi. He was only a little disturbed that it appeared that the warden would be observing this humiliation, but no matter. This was precisely the sort of thing he’d been mentally preparing for. As he let his hakama drop, he considered that the psychology of such things made sense. No doubt it was important to remind the prisoners that nothing they had was private any more. Honestly, the Academy employed similar tactics to get new recruits in a pliable state of mind. 

Undoing ties, Byakuya could feel eyes on him. Probably, the were looking for weaknesses. Perhaps they expected vanity, but Byakuya already expected to lose his hair. General population would likely require it, given the possibility of lice. He would shed no tears when they shaved his head. 

Interior ties undone as well, he let the shitagi and kosode drop together. He stepped forward as though to present himself.

“You’re surprisingly compliant,” the big guard said, managing to sound both disappointed and impressed. “And no underwear? It’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it, Hanatori?”

“This one has many secrets,” she said. “Captain-level, so we’ll have to feed him.”

“Shit damn, you’re already my number one pain in the ass, pretty boy,” the guard grumbled. Then the guard had him raise his arms, turn around, and then open his mouth and lift his tongue. The guard stepped close enough to Byakuya that he could have bit him on the nose. He managed not to do it. Byakuya felt he was doing very well, considering he was being inspected like a prize race horse in mixed company.

The trouble came, unexpectedly. 

Byakuya was perfectly prepared when asked to hold his butt-cheeks apart, squat and cough three times. Standing up, he let out a little breath. Certainly, the worst was over. 

He was just finished re-dressing when the guard said, “Last bit, I need to check your hair. I’m just going to run my fingers through it, make sure you don’t have any wires or garots hidden in them lovely locks.”

“No,” Byakuya said automatically. 

The guard who had been reaching out, blinked, “You don’t get to say ‘no,’ and what the hell, now you fight me? This is not where people usually fight me.”

Byakuya found that difficult to believe. After all, none of the previous requests involved being touched. Oogled and peered at, certainly, but not only did this involve a stranger’s hands on him, but it also was the sort of thing a lover would do. In fact, the last person to run his fingers through Byakuya’s hair had been Renji. And, quite firmly, Byakuya determined Renji would be the last. “I would rather it was cut off that submitted to your touch.”

“Really?” The guard glanced at the warden. “Because, you’re only here three weeks. We weren’t going to do anything else to it.”

And leave here with lice? No. “Cut it.”

“The search takes five minutes, tops.”

Byakuya said nothing, but when the guard reached for him, he slid out of his touch. Shunpo, it seemed worked just fine inside the walls. Perhaps a touch slower, but more than workable.

The guard glanced at the warden who shrugged. “Fine, although someone else is going to have to touch your damn precious hair to cut it, you moron. It’s not like we hand out scissors to the inmates and say ‘have at it, boys.’”

“I am prepared for a haircut.” Byakuya said firmly. 

The guard just shook his head. “Right, then, I guess you get door number two, after all.” He nodded in the direction Byakuya should go and a door slid open, though some kind of internal mechanism or subtle kidō. As Byakuya stepped through he heard the big guard mutter, “I have never in my life known anyone to request a prison haircut. You’re right, Hanatori, this one is weird. He’s going to be trouble. Mark my words.”

The barber had the finesse of a butcher, but it was mercifully quick. There were no mirrors. Byakuya had no sense of how he looked until the beefy guard met him again at the next cell door. 

“Huh,” the guard said. “Maybe it was a good choice after all. You look badass, pretty boy.”

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I realize that right now, most of you want to axe-murder me in my sleep for touching Bya-boo's hair. But, hear me out!
> 
> Go look at his hair when we see him again after the timeskip. It's a lot shorter. It's also cut very... roughly. But the length of his hair after the timeskip *is* _about_ as much as an average human could grow in say, a year and a half, wouldn't you say? (My hair is about that long now, and I've only been growing it out for a year) Plus, I promise to GODS it's not a buzz cut. Renji is going to see it in the next installment, so you'll get a mental picture then, too. 
> 
> Also, let's just agree. Byakuya is going to be hot no matter how much hair he has. He'd rock any do', and I think the prison guard has given us some indication that his beauty has in no way diminished.
> 
> Besides, as I tried to emphasize, getting a haircut was something Byakuya had mentally prepared himself for. Get touched? C'mon, Byakuya doesn't even like Renji touching him... so, a stranger running their fingers through his hair, even for five minutes. Nope. So much nope. I also don't think Byakuya is actually very vain. Gorgeous as sin, but he's never struck me as terribly aware of his beauty (like say Yumichika is.)
> 
> So just think about this as you plot my murder, okay? :-)


End file.
